


Like A Mirage

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Series: Season 5 Fix-its [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, basically what emori is thinking through that rover scene, emori POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 12:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14749292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: Emori's POV from when space fam picks up Murphy in 5x05





	Like A Mirage

That’s the signal. 

A sharp whistle on the wind and Emori’s head whips towards the sound. 

Then she’s running, silent like she remembers, but she can hear Monty and Harper’s footfall too, which means that it’s Echo who gave the signal. She breaks into the clearing and her breath catches. 

John. 

John with a collar on his neck, bruises and welts on his face and neck. Hunched like standing is painful, blood smeared everywhere, beaten. 

John. 

And Emori hates herself, hates that after everything the first feeling that rips through her is relief, but she pushes it away. She can’t feel that way, it’s not her right anymore. And as she tries to find something else to focus on, she realizes that there are six of them, which means...

“Where’s Raven?” she asks sharply, and everyone turns to her. Harper’s eyes are the heaviest, but she ignores them, raises her chin to look at John. His eyes are swollen, tired, like the rest of him and she bites the inside of her mouth, grounding herself, holding his gaze and refusing to look over the rest of his face. 

After a beat he looks away, down at the ground before he answers her. 

“She’s still there,” he says, jaw clenching. 

“You left her?” Echo asks disbelieving, and this, Emori can do. Anger has carried her through the past six months, and it’ll get her through this. If she has to look at John, fragile and hurt, and not let herself go to him, then she needs something else to focus on. Like the fact that Raven isn’t safe yet. 

“Why am I not surprised,” Emori mutters, the words sounding acidic as they feel. She doesn’t mean them but she throws them out. Maybe if she hurls enough at him, he’ll stop looking at her like he wishes he could take it all back. 

It hasn’t worked for the six months, but it’s all she knows.  

John doesn’t flinch, just takes it, and that almost makes it worse. “She made a deal to get me out,” he says his voice hollow, then something like purpose breaks behind his eyes. “Listen—”

“Shock collar?” Monty interrupts, reaching towards his neck and Emori can’t stop the worry tightening in her gut that matches the concern on Monty’s voice. How did she not notice that? The swelling around his neck, the tender skin there, _god_ the ragged breathing, and the way he flinches away when Monty reaches closer.    

“Trust me,” John says somberly, shaking his head slightly and moving from Monty’s hand, “I wouldn't do that.”

Her stomach tightens, impossibly. For everything, he can’t let Monty touch him, refuses to let him touch the device that’s around his neck, that has clearly been torturing him, and he’s worried that a single touch of it will hurt his friend. Echo lets out a soft breath next to her, understanding the extent of the torture as well. 

“What about Abby and Kane?” Harper asks, curious to hide her concern, “We saw them being led off the ship.”

John blinks, surprised. “You did?” 

“That means Bellamy got the bunker open,” Echo breathes, relieved, then her expression clouds and she shifts quickly, her eyes narrowing. “Did he not come back?” 

“What about Clarke?”

They all turn at Madi’s voice, John actually swaying on his feet. He stares at the girl, then turns back to them, processing.  

“Who's the hobbit?” he asks, almost unintentionally, then he shakes his head quickly, reminding himself, “You know what, never mind; we’ve got to get a warning to Bellamy before they fire their missiles.”

His words land heavily, and everyone seems to forget to breathe. Monty recovers first, his head tilting. 

“Missiles?” he repeats, and John nods quickly. 

“Yeah,” his voice urgent, “as in fiery death from above.”

Emori looks over at Monty. How can this be happening? They’ve barely gotten used to breathing air that isn’t recycled and already they’re facing annihilation. As a species. She refocuses on John as he draws a deep breath, slowing himself down, explaining.  

“Raven said that we need to get into radio range. Where's the Rover?”

“Bear cave; I'll drive,” Madi answers immediately, and they’re in motion. As she turns, falls into step behind Echo, she realizes that John hasn’t moved. Monty has to grab his arm and pull him, while Madi prattles on ahead.

“Don’t worry,” she says, her voice dry, “the bears are gone.”

They walk in silence after that. 

Well, she does. 

Monty is explaining who Madi is in hushed tones, and Echo is trying her level best not to panic about Bellamy not being back; Emori can feel her thinking as they settle into the backseat of the rover.  The engine roars to life and Monty hands John the radio—more room in the front seat anyways—and he begins to radio as Madi directs the rover to Polis. 

They all are silent then; the static of the radio and John’s futile attempts at contact the only sounds. 

“ Bellamy, come in,” he tries, for what feels like the ninetieth time, “It's Murphy. Please tell me you can hear me.”

But just static. Emori is clasping her hands together, trying to focus on anything other that the fact that John is in the rover, he’s a mess, and that she still is feeling things she’s supposed to have left behind months ago.  

“What?” Murphy’s voice interrupts the silence and for a moment, Emori thinks he’s asking her. She glances up quickly, relieved to find his eyes on Madi, hoping nobody else noticed her reaction. Monty’s face is deliberately blank, so her chances are low.  

Madi lifts a shoulder in an unaffected shrug. “Thought you'd be funnier.”

Emori thinks that John’s expression is plenty funny, but she wouldn’t say that for the world. 

“Clarke told her stories,” Monty explains, and Emori goes back to her hands, wishing she’d missed the delighted expression that came across John’s face.

“Oh, really?” Murphy all but preens, and Emori’s nails cut into her palm as he continues, “Was I the dashing hero who got the girl?”

It isn’t fair. Isn’t fair that he’s the hero of the stories and that he’s here, now, the hero again. And Emori can’t help herself, glaring out the window, trying to focus on anything other than the fact that he’s always been a hero for her, whatever the hell that meant to him. 

“Or the selfish fool who lost her?” she says, and she hates that she has to be spiteful, that the only way she knows to protect herself is to cut at him.  Not as much as she hates that she can’t stay staring out the window and has to check him. His profile is set and his jaw twitches, but he doesn’t say anything. 

Madi doesn’t seem to notice, and continues on. “Octavia's my favorite,” she says calmly, “I mean, no offense.” 

Everyone else makes the collective and unanimous decision to ignore that particular can of worms, and this time, Madi picks up on it. She coughs lightly, her tone turning serious. “Clarke said she wouldn't have made it without each one of you.”

And _that_ can of worms they can’t avoid, even though they’ve been trying for six years. 

“We wouldn't have made it without her,” Echo says, speaking for all of them. 

“Not even close,” Harper almost whispers, and Emori sees Monty’s hand sneak over to hold Harper’s, a soft and sweet moment that Emori hates herself for being jealous of. 

And then the car ignites. 

It’s the collar, she realizes slowly, her mind coming to the conclusion even as she can’t process what she’s seeing. John’s head is thrown back against the headrest, the veins on his neck standing out and his fists clenched at his side. Electricity is coursing through him, wracking him, pushing him and Emori can’t breathe. 

She hears Monty call out his name, but all she knows is she has to do something, anything, to help. But when she reaches for him, she’s thrown back. Madi slams on the brakes and Emori knows her eyes are wide and she can’t stop the panic coursing through her. Because the shock she got from touching him was like nothing she’d experienced in a while—like everything was burning, like her teeth were hollow, like every part of her was smarting with energy that she couldn’t contain. 

Echo’s saying something about proximity, Monty yells for Madi to reverse the car and she throws it into gear but Emori can’t tear her eyes from this face. 

John. 

His eyes screwed shut, his body twisting as he can’t contain the agony coursing through him. 

John. 

His jaw locked, unable to move, everything in him tense and over his tortured breathing and helpless moans, she can hear the beat of his heart because she’s known it for so long: survive, survive, survive.  

The car has stopped and Emori registers that the collar is no longer glowing; she can’t help it and she practically throws herself into the front seat of the car. 

“John,” she asks, her voice breathless, her eyes glued to his face, watching his pulse beat in his neck and needing, praying for his response, “can you hear me?”

“Monty, can you get it off?” Harper asks from behind her, and before he can respond, Echo is cutting in.  

“There's no time,” Echo interjects, her voice low, and the reality sinks over all of them. “We have to stop those missiles.”

And there it is. 

John can only go so far, and they need to go farther.

John is trapped and they need to fly. 

It settles over them, the impossibility of it, and Emori realizes she needs to move, needs to breathe, needs to think. Before anything else can happen, there’s the sound of a hand fumbling around for the door and the latch gives and Emori’s throat closes. 

“What are you doing?” Monty asks, his voice just as panicked and she feels. 

John doesn’t move, and his heavy breathing is still echoing through the car. 

“What I have to do, okay?” he says deliberately, decidedly. “Echo’s right. Just...leave me behind.”

They can’t. 

She can’t, she...Emori’s mind is screaming that she needs oxygen so she pulls in shaky breathe, realizing the rest of her is shaking too. 

And then John looks at her and she can’t stand the depth of emotion in his eyes, the awareness and the decision in them and she looks away. 

“No way,” Monty says evenly, desperation seeping in,“if it has a tether, it'll have a tracker, too. They're probably on their way right now.”

On their way right now. 

To John. 

John who she’d left on the prisoner’s ship, John who has a collar around his neck because she let him go. John whose breathing is still broken, whose frame is still convulsing, whose body is broken and bloodied and—

“That means you gotta go,” John says, and her mind is still reeling but then he gets out of the rover. He’s wincing with every motion, each movement enough to take his uneven breath away, and Emori reads the pain in every ragged breath. He shuts the door and it reverberates, seems to echo around the rover, and her friends all look equally shocked and crushed.

“Go,” John says again, his voice muted through the closed door. When she looks at him, he’s staring fixedly at Madi, whose small hands tighten on the wheel, and Emori knows exactly what he’s doing. None of them can leave him there, not again, but Clarke’s daughter should be able to. “Before our friends explode,” he says evenly. “Come on.”

Emori hears the lock catch like every door she’s closed for the last six months. The first time she told John she was moving across the hall. Slamming Raven’s door for the next three weeks, each time he stood outside. The doors she leaned against, shaking, reminding herself that cold metal was better than warm arms. The doors she’d set up around herself, clinging to whatever Raven and Monty would teach her, drowning her heart in code and algorithms and computers. And the door in the rocket, sealing him on that prisoner ship. 

They are all looking at her; she can feel their eyes, but no more than she can feel her heart pounding. Feel the beat of it in her throat, in her wrists, in her ears, 

After everything, this is not how she loses John Murphy. 

She lets out a quick breath to steady herself, then turns in the seat, facing Echo, whose mouth parts when she reads Emori’s expression. 

“Take care of them,” Emori says, her voice low, steady, certain.

Echo shakes her head sharply, wanting to protest, but swallowing the words. Harper reaches for her pack before Emori can, scooping it off the ground and lifting it over the seat. Her hand brushes over Emori’s as she hands it to her, but that’s all the time they could spare. Monty’s face is equally understanding, and Emori’s heart clenches. They will be okay, they have to be. She looks around the rover quickly, finally, at the family she’s never dared to dream for. 

Maybe she should say  _ may we meet again _ . 

They’d told her that much in space, explained Unity Day and the silly traditions are just like the religion the grounders wrap themselves in. So maybe she can say it, should say it. But she won’t, not if it means  _ goodbye _ . 

So she squares her shoulders, swinging the pack over her arm, leaning up to the front seat as she opens her door. 

“Drive fast,  _ natblida _ ,” Emori whispers, and the girl’s head tilts in confusion, but then she’s sliding the door shut again. Harper’s face is the last she sees, pressed against the glass with glistening eyes, a hand on the window and over her heart. Then Madi heeds her advice and the rover is gone, enveloped in a cloud of dust and dirt and tearing into the night. 

The dust settles. 

And there’s John. 

His profile turned as he watches the rover go, a million expressions written on his face. Selfishly, she wonders if any of the regret written there is for her, for them. She wonders what he sees as the rover speeds away, what he thinks is leaving in it. His escape? His life? His friends, his ex, his illusions of life back on the ground? 

Her? 

Sweat is beaded on his forehead, all over his face. He’s still breathing heavily, too, his body recovering from the collar. His eyes close, a blink that lasts a breath longer than normal, and damn it, damn him, she shouldn’t still know him this well. But she does; she knows that she has half a moment to fix her face to what she wants him to see, and sure enough, he’s turning already. 

She rolls her eyes, like she’s unaffected, like she can’t believe she’s here either. Like she’s mad at him for making her still care, like she’s annoyed and that’s the depth of it. 

But. 

He looks at her, and she almost cracks. 

Because when he looks at her, it’s like he isn’t sure. That she’s here, that she cares, that she’s real. That he matters to her, and that she would stay without a moment’s hesitation. Like she’s a mirage and if he moves too suddenly, she’ll disintegrate. 

She adjusts the pack on her shoulder and sighs heavily, refusing to meet his eyes for a second longer than necessary, lest he see her. Cocks her head to her left, turning, knowing he’ll follow. 

“Come on,” she says, on a voice that doesn’t sound like her heart’s barely holding together, like she’s not still drinking in the fact that he’s alive and he’s okay and he still might be hers. But she can’t go there, not yet. 

And before she turns, she steals a glance at him, one that isn’t hers to take and oh but it’s worth it. Because John’s eyes are warm and his mouth is turned up in a shadow of a smirk, and he’s following her without thinking about it, because maybe, after all this time and after everything, maybe she’s still his home. 


End file.
